Do your kids bring ingredients to school for food tech ?

[Shishasister]

Private Day school announced that due to health and safety pupils supply own ingredients.
Today it was 250g beef mince, can of tomatoes, box of tomatoe paste, 250g milk , 6 sheets of lasagna, 25g butter, 25g flour, 50g of grated cheese, 15ml of oil , and onion, a.carrot and a oven proof dish ..
Oh and pepper and mixed herbs.

Health and safety my arse , a child carrying raw meat and milk in a rucksack is more of a risk. 🤢
Plus I spent an exorbitant amount on last minute purchasing that surely would be more reasonable in bulk. Yes the dish came home but nobody will eat it except maybe the dog.

Always had to (state comp). Hated it. Especially when you get "1/2 teaspoon of spice we will never use the rest of the packet", and can guarantee that the death date is about 6 months before my next dc has to get the same spice for their food tech.
I'd rather pay an amount at the start of the year.

I think the truly wonderful was when the junior school decided to make Christingles, and they asked everyone to send in 4 cocktail sticks. Yes, we had about 300 parents trying to buy cocktail sticks from the local shops who had no idea why there was such a rush on them and only normally stocked about 6 packets. Lots of stressed parents, lots of upset children thinking they'd be in trouble for not bringing them in.
On Amazon you could buy 1000 cocktail sticks for less than £1.50. They could have bought 2000 and asked everyone to donate 50p towards them. Even if only half the parents paid, they'd still be quids in by a long way.
And it also would have saved the complaints that little Jonny poked Zebedee on the way into school with his cocktail sticks (and broke them).

Edited to say that they also only gave us 2 days notice, so ordering online wasn't an option really.

Mine only have to bring a tub! I never knew so many schools did this!

Yes, I find it a right ballache having to send in 30ml of milk or an egg. Would much rather they buy in bulk at school and we buy via the parentpay app. I do wonder what happens when a child can’t afford ingredients though. Hopefully free school dinner’s eligibility flags it.
No, I don’t eat stuff that comes home after being lugged about in his school bag. I always say well done, looks great and lie that I tried it. It is good that children have the opportunity to learn to cook and bake.

My FS went to a secondary special school and we had to send in £3.50 each week for Food Tech. £12.50 at Xmas so he could make a Xmas cake. This was great and DC all put food in the fridge and collected at home time. However once he started the GCSE course and each week each DC was making different food we had to send ingredients in every week. School supplied flour, sugar, herbs, spices, salt, pepper, cooking oil and milk if you sent in £1 each week. If FS was making something similar to a friend one took in chocolate powder the other took in choc chip pieces etc. If FS had to supply 3 fresh basil leaves I just sent in the whole basil herb. He said some DC were always forgetting to take things in. If he had to take some passata I just sent him in with the whole carton as I knew he'd spill it if otherwise. He just let others use up what he didn't need. I'd much rather have just sent money.

Last Food tech teacher ordered in bulk and froze and had vege and fruit delivered picked up by school driver weekly.
No different from the art teacher having to order stuff and prep materials.
It's a hassle having to source stuff and pottle it all up individually at short notice and when the food is basically wasted because it was in a school locker for hours after cooking.
I was boarding in secondary but we ate all we cooked at school.

When I was at school (left 40 years back mind) the school provided it all. We had to take money in weekly to cover costs.

You'd know who had had cookery that day by the biscuit tin used to transport what we'd made in!

Last Food tech teacher ordered in bulk and froze and had vege and fruit delivered picked up by school driver weekly.
Where are the freezers that can store all that? Who is getting out the right stuff for 6 periods a day? When are they doing that?

No different from the art teacher having to order stuff and prep materials.
Of course it is. Ordering 1000 art books and handing them out in the first lessons for the students to keep is absolutely not the same.

i remember 40 years ago having to take ingredients in and sometimes paying. It’s nothing new. Not sure why it’s such a surprise. It’s not exactly a massive effort and I think believing it’s some sort of health hazard is just looking for issues.

Yes, always had to, state school

We pay £25 a term for ingredients and foil containers. DS eats it instead of his packed lunch - even though it is supposed to feed 2-3. I've never seen anything he's made despite him winning the food tech prize last year.

State school charge £9 at the beginning of the year? / term? (Only just started so not sure) and all ingredients provided. Makes sooo much more sense!

DS has to buddy up with a partner and they split the ingredients between them. Only DS is a coeliac and out of all the dishes they cooked last year, only one didn't have to be adapted. I supply all the GF stuff as it is not fair on his partner otherwise - who is already at a massive disadvantage (let's just say DS's attempt at GF rolls was no more successful than any I have tried).

We either supply and they put in the fridge on arrival (for some foods if they don't use the fridge, they can't cook) but for things that people wouldn't normally have in eg when they made bread, you pay a contribution and the teacher gets it for the class.

A couple of things about those that are saying supermarket delivery would be easier.

Some schools will only pay for delivery once a week.
Ordering the ingredients is a massive time drain. and that is when it is simple and doesn't take in to account allergies and other special ingredients.
Storing the food is almost impossible. We had one freezer and two fridges.
Preparing the materials is again a massive time drain.
The amount of pupils that just throw the food away makes it a waste of money for the school.
If the pupil's bring in the ingredients from home that should be able to adapt the final product to what they enjoy.
Supermarkets now have a limit of various items so you could end up being short.
If the supermarket doesn't have the ingredients then someone has to go out of their way to buy it. and supermarkets are often not happy when you try and buy 30 sweet peppers etc.
And finally SLT used to place things on the same order and remove ingredients

Not related to the bulk buying but not every food department has a technician either full or part time.

My daughter's secondary had a cost per term and they provided all the basic ingredients, kids provided any extras (so they might do a cheese pizza with handmade dough, kids could bring in extra toppings).

It was brilliant because we stopped wasting so much buying a whole bag/jar of soemthing she just needed a one portion amount of. Plus she didn't have to carry it into school on the bus.

Just FYI I agree that basics should be provided by the school.
And in the one that I worked in it was.
This was spices, flour, milk, herbs, oil etc.

Yea, my y8 ds has to take his own ingredients to school.

I work in state primary schools and any items needed for food tech are bought by the school (or the class teacher spends their own money and is then reimbursed) but of course that's easier because cooking only usually happens once a term or less often, and only teaching one class every day means you get to know the children and are well aware of students' needs and allergies etc.

We had to take our own but as a friend group we did it together so I would bring the oil, someone else would bring the pasta etc

ShutTheDoorBabe

The last time I was buying ingredients for the class (as the school refused to put in a supermarket order) I was down £250 per month with up to (at least) 2 months to get it back as the office was very slow to process claims. .
We had to push for supermarket orders to be done.

Back in the 80's we used to have to bring money in and ingredients were supplied (includes learning how to weigh out) .
When my kids were in high school 2000+ I weighed everything for them to take to school .
To be fair back in the 80's if the teacher left the classroom we liked the cooking chocolate in the storeroom 😋

The kids at my school bring in their own ingredients, but they’re allowed to go to the food tech room first thing (before the bell) and put stuff in the fridge (named). They are also allowed to leave their cooking there and collect at the end of the day.

Wow! The most I've ever spent was about £30! I don't think I'd be able to cover anything more.

I do wonder if schools these days don't have proper home economics dept. When I was at schools we had proper rooms with sinks , running hot water , ovens and store cupboards and home economics teacher whose only job was teaching cooking .

It was six practical lessons at KS3 per week, and four lessons at KS4 (on average) per week.

The little things soon add up, With the added pressure of the management marking you down in observations and walk ins for pupils that didn't have the ingredients.

In the end we threatened not to do any more practicals as it was costing us to much out of our own pockets as the school started to refuse to pay for all of the ingredients that we were claiming for.

I left Secondary school in 1995 and we always had to take ingredients in. It went in the fridge when we got to school and when we had made whatever it went in the fridge until we went home